Listening to my favorite sports-talk radio show as I mark the unending stream of finals and term papers. A caller made a great point. When was the last time a ref called traveling or palming the ball in an NBA game? Okay, it was Earl the Pearl who made palming acceptable and that was a long time ago (mid-70s), but if you watch Jerry West or Oscar Robertson (on youtube) you won’t see them turning the ball over. You won’t see Julius Erving or Connie Hawkins taking six steps on the way to the basket. In today’s NBA that seems to happen a lot. Compare the Lakers v Celtics games in the 80s to the present series and you’ll notice a lot of other differences (beside the bad 80s uniforms).
Cranky nostalgia for by-gone days? Sure it is.
R. Scott Clark
R.Scott Clark is the President of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, the author and editor of, and contributor to several books and the author of many articles. He has taught church history and historical theology since 1997 at Westminster Seminary California. He has also taught at Wheaton College, Reformed Theological Seminary, and Concordia University. He has hosted the Heidelblog since 2007.
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Am I the only one who thinks they still do call traveling? I only ever see two steps. You guys ARE old. 😉
I believe Michael Jordan marks a watershed for palming the ball and traveling, but the only thing is he got away with it.
Kobe, kobe, kobe. haha
They don’t call traveling anymore because of the slam-dunk. In order for most of these guys to do their dunks they have to take 5-6 steps. If the refs started calling these, there would be no dunks. No dunks, no audience. No audience, no advertising deals. All sports are run by the almighty dollar.
Go Lakers!
I was going to say, have you noticed that now gasoline is more than $4.00 per gallon?
And here I thought you wanted to gather a group to visit Heidelberg!